Officials say an ax murder suicide in Elmwood NJ over the weekend was the result of the elderly perpetrator’s dementia, and that he may have tried at least three other times to harm himself and his wife.
An autopsy on 88-year-old Rosalia Juskin showed that her 100-year-old husband Michael Juskin axed her to death while she slept, then slit his own wrists and died.
Beginning in 2012, police have responded to a number of 911 calls at the aged couple’s address, primarily from the wife or the neighbors.
The last known plea for assistance came in January this year from Juskin’s spouse who stated her husband was acting confused and had locked her in the basement.
She was reportedly having more and more difficulties caring for the elderly man as his dementia progressed, not the least because he was becoming paranoid and suspicious of her.
"He was very unhappy," a next-door neighbor told the New York Times. “He thought his wife was taking his pension money. He might have thought she was cheating on him."
In January 2015, officers contacted adult protective services about Michael Juskin’s increasingly aberrant behavior, but agency heads ultimately concluded there was no reason to suspect he would hurt anybody.
They may in fact be the only ones surprised to learn then that the tragic pair’s lives ended in a suicide and ax murder.
